Various Artists - Alpha Dog: Music From The Motion Picture

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Composer Aaron Zigman and Tech N9ne dominate this soundtrack.

By Spence D.

Nick Cassavetes' new flick Alpha Dog is about youth gone wild, driven to drugs and emulating violent rap videos presumably out of sheer boredom and too much excess money and free time. Wannabe gangstas from the languid valleys of Los Angeles deal weed, flash steel, and end up kidnapping the younger brother of a customer who fronts on his payments. The accompanying soundtrack reflects these situations, unleashing appropriate rippling and turgid rap theatrics along with ironic classic pop thematics.

In terms of the latter, the album (as well as the film's opening sequence) kicks off with Eva Cassidy's rendition of the perennial classic "Over The Rainbow." The irony is thick since most of the kids portrayed in the film are grasping at straws rather than rainbows, mired in attaining bling and status rather than true happiness. Cassidy's version is poignant, to be sure, but it still smacks of the music supervisor thinking they were being a mite too clever with this selection.

On the rap side of things Kansas City underground phenom Tech N9ne serves up no less than four tracks (an interesting choice considering his Midwestern roots versus the Southern Cali locale of the film). "Caribou Lou" is a lumbering synth driven number paying tribute to getting your drunk on. "Slither" continues the drugs and booze and sex thematics, this time in a laidback saunter. Meanwhile "La La Land" unfurls with an electronic flamenco vibe rippling with Spanish guitar and femme fatale vocalistics (this track is of special note as it feature Cassavetes' daughter, Gina, on vocals). "Night and Day" is an ode to balmy nights in SoCal, focusing on booze and pop cultural references.

Featured composer Aaron Zigman displays a wealth of genre manipulation from mucho industrialized blitz ("Cookie Monster") to Janes Addiction like Los Angeles psychedelic sway ("Revolving"), vintage Sergio Mendes inspired lush pop ("Liar"), and desperate menace seeped in Stygian mist ("Winner") on down to grinding between the sheets rap&blues ("Let's Chill") and West Coast poplock ("Pool Party"). However, on many tunes, especially those featuring Paul Bushnell on vocals, Zigman and company evoke the sonic doppelganger of Trent Reznor.

Some of the rap created for the film is actually fairly decent. While tracks like "Enemy and I" (by Lazarus), "Pool Party" and "Never Give Up" (as performed by Mic Holden) and "Basketball," "Weightlifting," and "Marco Polo" (by Lowd) may not become seminal classics of the genre, they're still competent and pack some energy and heat, especially the tracks by Lowd.

For the most part a lot of the music simply works better within the context of the film. For example "Jake Breaks In" is a rather annoying slab of industrialized grind when standing on its own. But in the film during the scene where Ben Foster's character goes on an anger and hate fueled rampage it's damn near brilliant. To their credit, though, the soundtrack producers (composer Zigman and filmmaker Cassavetes) deserve kudos for bypassing the obvious: there are no Justin Timberlake tracks anywhere to be found.